55 Fun Facts About Judo

What does the word 'judo' literally mean?

Gentle way refers to yielding: instead of meeting a stronger attacker's force head-on, a judoka gives way to it and turns that power against him.

Why did judo's teenage founder first learn to fight?

Bullying drove him: small and picked on by classmates, he set out to learn to defend himself, and ended up reinventing the art he was taught.

From which older Japanese fighting art was judo primarily developed?

Jujutsu (jiu-jitsu) had fallen so far out of fashion in westernising Japan that judo's founder struggled to find anyone still willing to teach it.

What is judo's word for free sparring, which its founder emphasised over pre-arranged forms?

Randori lets both partners attack and resist for real, which only works because judo's most dangerous moves were removed so throws could be tried at full force without injury.

Which two things, though present in some kata, are illegal in judo competition?

Strikes and weapons survive only in kata, where partners rehearse set defences against punches, kicks, a dagger, a stick and even a pistol.

Where did Kanō open his first judo dōjō in 1882?

A Buddhist temple in Tokyo, Eishō-ji, housed the first dōjō, but the school soon outgrew it and moved through several larger halls around the city.

What does the name of judo's headquarters, the Kodokan, mean?

Place for expounding the way: Kanō chose the name because he saw judo as a path to self-perfection rather than a mere set of fighting techniques.

In which competitions did Kodokan judoka first make their name by beating the old jujutsu schools?

Tokyo Metropolitan Police tournaments convinced the police to hire Kodokan instructors, and judo became a required subject in police training.

What are judo's two guiding principles?

Maximum efficiency and mutual welfare (seiryoku zen'yō, jita kyōei) grew out of Kanō's early motto 'softness overcomes hardness', which he later judged too narrow.

Which director made his feature debut with Sanshiro Sugata, a 1943 film about a young judo fighter?

Akira Kurosawa filmed a novel whose hero was modelled on Kodokan star Shirō Saigō, and the story has since been remade for film and TV many times.

What is the highest score in a judo contest, ending it immediately?

Ippon ends the contest at once, so a judoka trailing on the scoreboard can still win with a single clean throw.

Which country won its first Olympic medal of any kind when judoka Majlinda Kelmendi took gold at Rio 2016?

Kosovo was at its first Olympics after joining the IOC in 2014; four years earlier, at London 2012, Kelmendi had fought for Albania.

What does a judo referee's call of 'osaekomi' announce?

A hold-down begins: keep the opponent pinned on their back for 20 seconds and the bout is won outright, while 10 seconds earns a lesser score.

What is a shido?

A penalty for a minor infringement, a shido literally means 'guidance', and a judoka who collects three of them loses the match.

Which joint is the only one that may be attacked with locks in competitive judo?

The elbow is the only joint competitors may lock; leg locks such as ashi-garami were banned from contests long ago but still survive in the Katame-no-kata.

What are judo's three basic categories of technique?

Throwing, grappling and striking make up the syllabus, yet a beginner's first lessons are breakfalls, because throws can't be practised safely until you know how to land.

What colour belt may a 10th-dan judoka wear in place of black?

Red is the Kodokan's belt for 9th and 10th dan, and although Kanō set no ceiling on the grades, nobody has ever been promoted beyond 10th.

Which Tokyo arena, built for judo's Olympic debut in 1964, hosted the Beatles two years later?

Nippon Budokan means 'Japan martial arts hall', and protesters said a pop group would desecrate it, but the Beatles played five shows there and it became a famous concert venue.

Which US president took judo lessons in the White House from a visiting Kodokan master?

Theodore Roosevelt trained in a White House room with Yamashita Yoshitsugu, then saw to it that the Kodokan man was hired to teach judo at the US Naval Academy.

What does a judoka try to break with 'kuzushi', the first stage of every throw?

The opponent's balance goes first, then the thrower fits in and finishes, which is why an off-balance heavyweight can be toppled with very little strength.

Rusty Kanokogi lost her 1959 judo medal for being what?

She was a woman who had entered disguised as a man; the snub drove her to campaign for decades until women's judo reached the Olympics, with Kanokogi herself as the first US coach.

Which Games first hosted judo's mixed team event, with three men and three women per side?

Tokyo 2020 staged the first mixed team final and the hosts lost it: France beat Japan in the sport's own homeland.

What is unusual about the medals in each Olympic judo weight class?

Two bronzes are awarded because beaten quarter-finalists get a second chance through the repechage, so every weight class ends with two separate fights for third place.

What two colours of judogi are permitted in official international competition?

White and blue became the international standard for television's sake, so viewers could tell the fighters apart; under Japan's domestic rules both judoka still wear white.

Which French judoka helped light the Paris 2024 Olympic cauldron, then won heavyweight gold a week later?

Teddy Riner shared the honour with sprinter Marie-José Pérec, then won the +100 kg title in front of his home crowd for his third individual Olympic gold.

Roughly how many fights in a row did France's heavyweight judo star win before finally losing in 2020?

Roughly 150: the streak reached 154 wins over almost ten years and ended in front of his home crowd, when Japan's Kokoro Kageura beat him at the Paris Grand Slam.

Which Japanese judoka won three straight Olympic golds at -60 kg, in 1996, 2000 and 2004?

Tadahiro Nomura needed just 14 seconds to win the Sydney 2000 final. Judo ran in the family: his uncle Toyokazu had been Olympic champion in 1972.

Which future UFC champion won an Olympic judo bronze medal for the United States in 2008?

Ronda Rousey took her judo into the cage: the armbar that ended most of her fights was a relic of the mat, and she became the UFC's first women's champion.

Which American won Olympic judo gold at -78 kg in both 2012 and 2016, then a UFC belt?

Kayla Harrison took the bantamweight belt in June 2025, in only her third UFC fight, forcing Julianna Peña to tap to a kimura five seconds before the end of round two.

Which world leader is a judo black belt who co-wrote a book on the sport?

Vladimir Putin was the International Judo Federation's honorary president until 2022, when it removed him from every post over the invasion of Ukraine.

Which Kodokan judoka, nicknamed Conde Koma, taught the Gracies and fathered Brazilian jiu-jitsu?

Mitsuyo Maeda spent years taking on wrestlers and boxers in open challenge matches across America and Europe before settling in Belém, Brazil, where the teenage Carlos Gracie became his pupil.

Which Soviet martial art was co-founded by Vasili Oshchepkov, an early European judo black belt?

Sambo is a Russian acronym for 'self-defence without weapons'. Oshchepkov had earned his Kodokan black belt as an orphan studying at a seminary in Tokyo.

In which European capital was judo's world governing body founded in 1951?

London hosted the European federations that created the International Judo Federation under an Italian president; a Japanese president took over the following year.

What did Kanō do at the 1932 Olympics that first brought judo to the Games?

Kanō hosted an informal demonstration in Los Angeles, yet he never pushed for Olympic status: asked about it in 1936, he called his own view 'rather passive'.

Kanō became the first Asian member of which sporting body in 1909?

The International Olympic Committee elected him in 1909, and three years later he led Japan's first Olympic team to Stockholm: just two runners.

Where did Kanō die in May 1938?

At sea aboard the ship Hikawa Maru, he was 77 and on his way home from Cairo, where he had persuaded the IOC to keep the 1940 Games in Tokyo; he died on the Pacific, officially of pneumonia.

What business was Kanō's family known for in Mikage, near Kobe?

Sake brewing made the Kanō name, and the makers of Kiku-Masamune are his relatives. His own father shipped sake to Edo instead, then took a post in the new Meiji government.

Which former US president watched Kanō take part in a jujutsu demonstration in 1879?

Ulysses S. Grant was touring the world after leaving office when Shibusawa Eiichi, head of Tokyo's welcome committee, laid on a jujutsu display at his home with Kanō, still a student, among the performers.

Away from the mat, what was the day job of judo's founder for most of his working life?

School headmaster: he led Tokyo's main teacher-training college for over two decades, and also ran a school for the Chinese students who began arriving in Japan in the 1890s.

What is Kanō credited with devising to popularise judo among Japanese women?

Judo-dance set judo moves to music because women then had few chances to compete, and it faded in the 1990s once women's contest judo took off.

Which special-school ruleset, still practised at some Japanese universities, stresses groundwork?

Kosen judo lets a fighter drag an opponent straight to the mat and grapple with no referee's break; Japan's seven former imperial universities still hold a yearly team contest under its rules.

Which impairment must every Paralympic judoka have?

Vision impairment is the only eligible category, so the two fighters must take hold of each other's jackets before the referee starts the bout.

In judo's classification of standing throws, which group relies mainly on the arms?

Te-waza means hand techniques, and the group holds a surprise: the shoulder throw seoi-nage and the shoulder wheel kata-guruma are both filed here rather than under the hips.

What are the two roles called in judo practice, the thrower and the one thrown?

Tori and uke mean 'taker' and 'receiver', yet in judo's formal kata it is usually uke, the receiver, who attacks first, and tori who turns that attack into the throw.

Which Japanese judoka went unbeaten in 203 bouts between 1977 and 1985?

Yasuhiro Yamashita kept the streak alive even at the 1984 Olympics, where he tore a calf muscle in an early round and still limped through to the open-class gold.

Which multi-sport event added judo in 1990?

The Commonwealth Games gave judo a full debut in Auckland after a trial run at Edinburgh 1986, but only as an optional sport, and hosts left it out again until Manchester 2002.

Which of judo's oldest forms, derived from Kitō-ryū, was originally meant to be performed wearing armour?

Koshiki-no-kata, the 'antique forms', keeps 21 techniques from battlefield grappling between armoured warriors, which is why both partners still move as if weighed down by armour.

Which French artist, later famous for his own shade of blue, earned a fourth-dan black belt at Tokyo's Kodokan?

Yves Klein came home from Tokyo to open a judo school in Paris and published a judo manual in 1954, all before the blue monochromes made his name.

Which Israeli judoka became her country's first Olympic medallist, with silver at Barcelona 1992?

Yael Arad dedicated the medal to the eleven Israelis murdered at the Munich Games twenty years earlier; a day later Oren Smadja added a judo bronze, the country's second medal ever.

The dan grades Kanō adopted for judo were first devised in the 17th century for which board game?

Go's dan grades are credited to the master Hon'inbō Dōsaku, who wanted a fair way to set handicap stones between players; Kanō was the first to carry the idea into a martial art.

Who proposed in 1986 that one judoka in every international bout should stop wearing white?

Anton Geesink, the Dutchman who had beaten Japan to the open-weight gold at Tokyo 1964, saw the idea tried at the 1988 European championships, and the world federation adopted it in 1997.

Kanō's first jujutsu teacher, Fukuda Hachinosuke, taught which school of the art?

Tenjin Shin'yō-ryū was what Fukuda taught in a room beside his bonesetting clinic. Kanō had found him by calling on bonesetters, reasoning that men who mended joints had usually trained in jujutsu.

Which kata takes three techniques each from the hand, hip, foot and two sacrifice groups?

Nage-no-kata, the 'forms of throwing', has every one of its fifteen techniques performed on both the right and the left, so the partner is thrown thirty times.

Which tenth dan, nicknamed the 'god of judo', devised a kata made entirely of counters to throws?

Kyuzo Mifune was a small man who made a career of turning bigger opponents' attacks against them, and he set fifteen of his counters into a form that the Kodokan has never adopted as official.

Besides tapping, a judoka can signal submission by saying which Japanese word?

Maitta means 'I give up', and saying it ends the bout on the spot, so a judoka caught in a stranglehold can surrender before blacking out.